“Miller.” I keep my voice low and deadly. “What are you doing?”
He smiles like the meddling little fuck he is. “Helping you to your seat.”
Despite trying not to, I still have a crush on Tate.Very good,he said last night through email, and I’m embarrassed at how many times I’ve re-read it.
But I haven’t told anyone, and I don’t plan to. It feels like the team is conspiring to set us up, though. Can they tell? Is it that obvious?
Maybe I’m being paranoid.
I feel the eyes of everyone as I make my way to the only empty seat on the plane. Everyone except Tate, who’s focused on his laptop.
“Hi,” he says, looking up as I drop into my seat.
“Hi.” I gesture around. “Were you aware of this?”
He frowns. “Aware of what?”
Oh. He doesn’t know. And I’m not going to bring it up to him so he can laugh in my face.
A couple rows ahead, Luca is hanging over the back of his seat, talking with Hayden and Rory.Notsleeping.
I’m so going to put hot sauce in his drink next time he’s at the bar.
“Nothing,” I tell Tate, pulling out my own laptop to review last night’s game tape. “Nothing at all.”
Later in the flight, I receive an email from Tate’s admin, and I have to read it a few times to make sure I’m not seeing things.
Gary Horchuk Exit Papers,the subject line reads.
“Did Gary quit?” I ask Tate.
His eyes flick to mine and I think about his expression at the end of dinner last night. He held his expression so tightly controlled. He was struggling with something, and he was weird after in the elevator.
“Something like that,” he says.
“So Gary the Fuckhead would rather quit than work with me.” Great. I’m sure the scouts hate me now.
“No.” Something dark flashes in his eyes. “I let him go.”
I’m not breathing. “You fired him?”
He turns back to his laptop and takes a deep breath like he’s weighing his words with care. “I no longer felt thatGary the Fuckheadwas a positive contributor to this organization.”
I’m frozen.
“Anything else?” he asks.
I shake my head, speechless.
“You find a new bar manager yet?”
I nod. She started a few days ago.
“Good.” He sounds pleased, and restarts the game he was watching.
We don’t talk for the rest of the ride home.
CHAPTER 36
